If you don’t get Selkie’s reference in the last panel, Ponyo is about a fish-girl who loves ham.
Today's edition of the Secret Commentary is empty, because Dave failed to come up with something for it.
If you don’t get Selkie’s reference in the last panel, Ponyo is about a fish-girl who loves ham.
I bet Selkie loves Ponyo….nice reference!
I love Ponyo, such trippy visuals.
Oh, Selkie, violence has never solved anything.
It solves things remarkably often, unfortunately.
It solves the surface issues remarkably often. It never solves the underlying problems.
It solves nothing.
The Sarnothi dictator can win, and he’ll still be in the wrong. The problem- intolerance and predjudice- will not be solved by exiling the different.
Violence has solved nothing historically.
The Allies winning WWII didn’t solve the problem- human ignorance and xenophobia. If, gods forbid, the Axis had won, they would still have been wrong. Only education and understanding can solve anything.
Ow, being serious hurts. Why did nobody tell me?
If the problem is human ignorance and xenophobia then eliminating humans can solve the problem. Advanced aliens can simply slam an asteroid into the earth.
No more humans.
No more ignorance.
No more xenophobia.
Violence solves the problem after all.
Killing the patient is not curing the disease… oh, everyone’s moved on!
I would say that violence from good people/forces is necessary to solve problems of violence from bad people/forces. And that, generally speaking, if a person is not currently harming someone, or threatening imminent harm to someone, then violence is not called for, and other tactics should be employed.
I like the mindset that I’ve read about the Sikhs having:
1. Do your best to resolve the situation in any way short of violence; but
2. If violence is necessary to defend yourself or others, be ready to use it, and
3. Prepare/train ahead of time, so that when you must use violence, you do not do more harm than is necessary to resolve the situation.
The first episode of Person of Interest ends with this sort of setup:
Stills, a crooked cop, has tried to arrange for the death of Wheeler (and, by circumstance, Wheeler’s young son), while framing an ex-convict for the murder. He has two accomplices.
Reese, our main character, sneaks up behind one accomplice and holds him at gunpoint, alerting Stills, and this standoff allows Wheeler and his son to leave without ever realizing that they’d been in danger.
When the second accomplice comes down the stairs, Reese shoots him (non-fatally), and tells the first accomplice to take his friend to the hospital, which leaves just Stills (holding the ex-convict hostage) vs. Reese (gun trained on Stills).
When it becomes clear that Stills will not back down, Reese shoots him, thus allowing the ex-convict to escape unharmed.
This is a situation in which it was impossible for the good guy team to defuse the situation without violence, except at great risk to Wheeler, Wheeler’s son, and the ex-convict, all of whom were innocent victims here. Reese used the minimal amount of violence necessary to stop the murder (saving Wheeler and his son), get the accomplices to stand down (making it more likely that Stills might stand down), and then to free the ex-convict (which required killing Stills).
Situations like these are perhaps rarer than we might think (there are often non-lethal ways to defuse situations, and the news makes it seem like there’s danger everywhere you look), but they do exist, and there are times when the aggressors (people who choose to use violence against innocent parties) must be met with defenders willing and able to use violence to stop them. This is the nature of the world.
All that said… if the person is not currently causing harm, or threatening imminent harm, then violence is (generally speaking) not the right response. Punching people over their worlds or viewpoints, or over something they did a long time ago, is very rarely acceptable behavior.
Remember this guy? “White nationalist Richard Spencer said he’s considering suspending his controversial “alt-right” speaking tour amid escalating violence at his appearances.” Worlds or viewpoints can and do create real tangible harm, and if punching nazis makes them afraid to promote their harmful crap I’m all for it.
Mikael: That’s what every fascist says.
A measured, informed, and rational reply, Kilyle. I think there’s a difference between “violence” and “active response”. The policeman who must shoot does so, ultimately, to prevent violence, with justification, in good conscience. Our Dictator might claim to be preventing violence, but he’s certainly not doing so, he’s just initiating it for his own agenda.
This is a perfect example of the No True Scotsman fallacy.
Todd is such a good dad!
Now I have the Ponyo theme as an earworm.
PONYO WANT HAM! You will not stop my relentless pursuit of Oscar-Meyer. By the satanic creatures of the sea, I will have ham!
That’s what popped in my head first, too – https://youtu.be/mfH5gLLl_qU
When she says she wants Ponyo, does she mean to watch or to EAT???
[Kosh] Yes… [/Kosh]
HAAAAAAM!
Your avatar is strangely perfect for your comment
Hams and Ponyo. Always a good decision!
Mmmmm… Hams and Ponyo. We are vegetarians, but I still crave a ham-like product when I watch it. Good thing I know how to do magical things with Vital Wheat Gluten (actually much tastier than it sounds).
It would have to be.
The way she words it…does she want to watch Ponyo? Or does she want to *eat* Ponyo?
Now I’m trying to figure out if that’s a Ponyo cover I used as one of Selkie’s presents in 2015 (my guest page for the Christmas update). The upper portion (of the part we can see) looks like it, but I can’t find a cover online that looks like the lower colorful portion. And I don’t know where I put the files so I can’t check what I originally made it from.
But I definitely used two Ghibli films, and Spirited Away is obvious, and the rest of the things I see aren’t Ghibli films, so… it’s likely? I tried very hard to match the gifts to both Selkie and Amanda in terms of what would most appeal to their personalities and backstories.
I recognize Pinto, Spirited Away, Anastasia, and Tangled. Still trying to recognize some of the others.
Ponyo. Damn autocorrect.
Speaking of Ponyo…
That’s a character who started out as a tiny goldfish, and quickly grew up into a little girl.
I think I just figured out where Dave got his inspiration for Tai Lee and the Sarnothi growth cycle.